by Dixon, Ruby
“Very little,” she admits, beaming at me. “This place is a scientist’s wet dream.”
A wet…dream? I have never heard the term, but I know exactly what she refers to. “Are you wet right now, then?” I tease, unable to resist.
D’vi gives a nervous giggle, her face wreathed in smiles. “Naughty man. Come on, let’s go back to your hut before anyone sees us out here.”
Sitting down is good. I nod and we head on toward the hut. This time, climbing back atop the platform is no less tricky, but when D’vi suggests I use her shoulder, I take it. It does not feel like pity when she offers, and that is the difference. “At home, a lot of places have ramps or a railing for those less able,” she suggests. “Maybe look into something like that if it continues to be a struggle?”
I nod, because it is a good idea. And when I sit by the fire, I ease my weight down with ease and give a sigh of pure contentment. I am tired from that small walk…but it was worth it. Every step I took was a step toward the old N’dek, the fierce hunter who needed no help.
I am going to be that hunter again.
I wipe the sweat from my brow, glancing over at her as she sinks to the floor gracefully. Despite her long legs, she moves with elegance. I am glad she is staying a bit longer. Even though I am tired, I am not sleepy. It feels good to have company again, real company, not just someone that pities me and feels it is their duty to entertain me.
She clutches her shell, leaning closer to the fire to see inside it. “I don’t think it has an occupant,” she tells me sadly. “That’s a bummer.”
“A bummer,” I agree, though I do not know what a bummer is. “You said you brought extra equipment for my leg?”
“Oh! Yes, it’s in my bag. I made two of everything and grabbed four bones of varying lengths just in case one didn’t work out. I’ll leave them here with you unless you want me to keep fiddling with it.”
“I can do it,” I reassure her.
She sets her shell aside and pulls her heavy pack into her lap, pulling out objects. “So what changed for you, if you don’t mind me asking? What made you decide to get a prosthetic now? You said it’s been months since your accident, right? What spurred the change of heart, if you don’t mind me asking?” D’vi glances up. “If it’s too personal, you don’t have to talk about it, of course.”
It is personal, but I do not mind her asking, because it is D’vi and I feel as if I can trust her for all that we do not know each other beyond this day. “I think I might resonate to a female soon,” I say, rubbing my chest. I think of B’shit back at the camp, tossing her hair and glaring at A’tam. How she said my name as if she already was drawn to me. I think it will be her.
I think. I still do not feel much for her, but perhaps these things take time.
“Mm,” D’vi says, busy pulling out bundles from her pack. “Oh, look, I have five bones, not four. That’s useful.” She tosses a smile at me and digs into her pack once more.
I find myself grinning at her enthusiasm. She is easy to smile at. I watch her, pulling my fake leg off and rubbing my aching stump. I need more padding for certain, but my thoughts are not on that. I think instead of how she leaned over me, her mane falling forward, a look of concentration on her face as she touched my thigh…and my cock gets hard again.
Perhaps this is all because I will resonate to B’shit soon.
Perhaps this is why B’shit mated with A’tam. Because she was…I do not know. Should I not be angry that B’shit was in A’tam’s furs? I find I do not care much one way or another. I would rather D’vi come and touch my leg again.
I study her as she picks through a pile of leather pieces, speaking of replacement straps. She was surprised at my cock and my spur. If I am to please a human female, I should probably learn what they like. I know D’vi would tell me.
Perhaps she would show me what she likes.
My cock hardens painfully again, and I slide the bundle of bones into my lap to cover it. “D’vi?”
“Hmm?” She looks over at me.
“I need your help with more than just my leg,” I say. “I want to know all about human females so I can please the one I resonate to. You said our bodies are different, and I do not want to frighten her when we resonate. I want to know what humans like from their males so I am ready when I resonate to her.”
She laughs, her eyes bright. “What am I, chopped liver?”
Liver? Of course she is liver. The organ meats are the tenderest and most prized, quickly snatched up after a hunt. “Yes, of course you are.”
Her face falls. “Oh.”
Perhaps she does not like compliments? I worry I have said the wrong thing. Is it bad for me to tell her she is attractive if we are not to resonate? “I need help with this,” I say quickly. “And…if you help me, I will share information about the creatures on the beach.” I gesture at the shell near her knee. “Like that one.”
Her expression brightens again. “I would love that.”
I nod, pleased. “I did not pay much attention to the females when we arrived here on the beach. Now I wish I had. If you help me, it will ensure my mate will not run from me as H’nah did from J’shel.”
“That’s all right. If you want gossip on what each woman likes, though, I’m probably the wrong person. I’m not exactly super close to anyone.” She gives a little grimace. “I thought I was making headway in regards to having friends, but then I got too fascinated with the beach and I think I scared them all away. Sam or Bridget would be better for specifics—they’re friends with everyone. Penny, too. But if you want to know about humans in general, I can help.”
“General is fine.” I am thinking about her cunt. Is it the same as a female of the People? Smaller? Why does that make my cock even harder? I cannot be erect every time I ask her anything. “Tell me what human females like.”
She sits back, surprised. “You want to start now? It’s rather late.” A small yawn escapes her.
I do not want her to go just yet. I like her company. So I hold up a finger indicating she should wait, and then dig through a few pouches. I find one that has a rattle to it when I touch it, and hold it out to her.
“What is this?”
“When a hunter is on a long trek and cannot sleep, he takes one of these and puts it under his tongue. It will give him a burst of energy.”
“A stimulant?” D’vi asks, curious. She opens the pouch and then her mobile, dark brows furrow together. “It…looks like a shrimp shell.”
“They are tiny crawlers that live in the waters, yes. You suck the meat out and keep the shell for such occasions.”
“Oh.” Her nose wrinkles as she pulls one of the shells out. “I’ve seen these in the tide pools. We don’t catch these for food. How come?”
“Because they will keep you awake all day long.”
“Weird.”
I remember that the other human females squirm in horror at some of the creatures on the beach. That they do not eat their food raw. They are squeamish. But D’vi plucks one of the shells from the bag and puts it in her mouth, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“It’s sweet,” she says after a moment, her brows going up in surprise. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Yes,” I agree, pleased. “Very sweet.”
“I wonder if I could make coffee out of this.” She rolls it around in her mouth, her expression fascinated. “I mean, if they make coffee out of civet poop at home, I can make it out of shrimp shells, right?”
“I…yes?”
She gives me a closed-mouth smile and shivers. “It makes me tingly. I could get to like this.”
My cock grows hard again. “I am glad you agreed to help me.”
“Absolutely!” D’vi shifts her weight and looks over at me, curious. “What do you want to know?”
What your cunt looks like. “I…am not sure yet. I want to know what human females like.”
She chuckles. “It depends on the female.”
“What about you
?”
“Me?” That makes her laugh again. “I don’t think the other girls like what I like. I like time alone on the beach. A new specimen I haven’t seen before. Learning more about this place.” She thinks for a moment and then points at her mouth. “I do like this, though.”
“Do you think the other humans would?”
“That’s a great question, but if they don’t, they’re missing out.”
I grin at her, and we are silent for a long moment. I want to ask her all kinds of things about human females—why their teats are large, what it looks like where their tails should be, if my cock truly is as big to her as she thinks it is—but they feel too intimate just yet. I remember the expression on her face as I washed myself, as if she wanted to look away but could not. Next time, perhaps, I will ask her more daring things. For now, I will be patient.
I like the thought of her coming back, though. “Will you return tomorrow night? After everyone is asleep again?”
“Sure.” D’vi snaps her fingers. “Oh, before I forget, I brought these to hide over here.” She pulls a bulky bundle of furs out of her pack and unwraps them, only to reveal…more skins. They are all tightly rolled up and bound with a leather strip, but she touches them reverently.
“What are those for? Clothing?”
She shakes her head. “Back home we had paper, but there’s nothing to write on here. There’s so much that I’m learning and nothing to write on. Mardok has a datapad but he’s always using it, you know? And he says it’s about to run out of juice anyhow.” Her expression grows wistful. “I don’t want to forget anything I’ve learned and sometimes I can’t remember it all so I’m trying to write it down. I know it’s a waste of skins when they should be for clothing or shelter but…I can’t help myself. I think if the others knew I had them, they’d take them away and re-use them for something practical. So that’s why I wanted to hide them here.” With shaking fingers, she undoes the leather ties and carefully unrolls the skin to show me.
On the inside of the skin, she has etched a great many markings, thousands of them, all in neat order. Some of the markings are larger than others, and a few are drawings of creatures, with arrows pointing at their insides. “What is all this?”
“Lab notes…except I’m not in a lab. Writing all this stuff out is a bitch, but I think I’ve found a semi-permanent dye that writes like ink. I’m trying to record all the differences I see in each specimen, and the common factors they have so I can build a family tree of sorts, see which creatures were ancestors to the others and vice versa.”
I frown at her, because this seems like a great deal of work that no one will ever see…or care about. “But why does it matter?”
She looks utterly crestfallen at my question. Her fingers skim over the etchings. “It matters because it helps us understand the world we live in more. It helps us understand how these animals came to be. There’s not a lot of species diversity here on the beach, you know? You have your crawlers, and your sand-scorpions, which are related to your crawlers. You have your spaghetti monsters and some of the larger creatures, but there should be hundreds of species swimming in this water and there just aren’t. Everything on the shore is related to one another. If this was a diverse ecosystem, they wouldn’t have so many common traits that point to a shared ancestor. There’s evidence that this place once housed a lot of different species, but when I go picking things apart, I don’t see them. It makes me think we’re either recovering from an extinction-level event similar to the Permian-Triassic one back on Earth, or we’re heading toward one.” She pauses for a moment and then adds, “But my money’s on the former.”
“Perm…” I begin, baffled. “What is this?”
“The Permian-Triassic event was the biggest extinction event on Earth,” she tells me, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. It was millions of years ago—250 million or so. It wiped out ninety-seven percent of what was living in the ocean and almost as much of what was living on land. And it was caused by volcanoes erupting and destroying the atmosphere to the point that the air and land were unlivable.”
“You think that will happen again here?” I ask, remembering the rumblings of the Great Smoking Mountain.
“Actually I think we’re in an Ice Age recovery period. Everything’s cooling off and life is trying to replenish itself. But maybe a million years ago or ten million years ago this was a very, very different place.” Her eyes are sparkling with excitement and she beams at me. “Can you imagine?”
“A recovery period…” I echo. “And this is…good?”
“It’s not good or bad, really. It just is.” She swallows and gets a strange look on her face. “What happens if I eat my shrimp shell?”
“Your belly will grow a new shrimp,” I tease.
Her eyes widen. “Really? It’s parasitic?”
I nudge her shoulder. “I tease you. Do not look so excited at the thought of growing a new shrimp.”
She laughs. “I’m sorry. I know I’m weird. It’s just…this place is a scientist’s dream, you know? So much new life, so much history waiting to be figured out. I could spend every day here for the rest of my life and it’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s exciting.” Her expression softens, her smile dimming. “I know some people are upset—like Hannah. I get it. I left a lot back home. I miss my family, my mother, my Nani, my cousins, but…I’ll cry over that later. For now I’m going to learn as much about this place as I can.”
As she smiles at me again, I am entranced by her expression. This female is fascinating. I love her curious mind and her eagerness for the world. I hope that B’shit—or whoever I resonate to—is like D’vi. That would make me a very happy male indeed.
“I will keep your skins here,” I promise her. “No one will touch them.”
She bites her lip. “Do you think it’s greedy to hide them when they can be used for clothing?”
“No.”
Her expression grows sly. “What if I keep stealing skins and writing more on them? Will you hide those for me, too?”
Clever little thief. “I shall.”
“What if someone asks why you’re hoarding so much leather?”
“I will tell anyone that asks that I am very cold at night, rub my stump, and they will trip over themselves to apologize.”
She laughs, smacking my arm lightly. “You’re terrible. I love it.”
I might be, but I like her smile too much to care.
5
DEVI
Ugh, these games. Yawn.
I’m so tired of hearing about them. Tired of them being the only thing anyone ever talks about. It’s been almost a week and we still haven’t started the damn things. I’m ready to get them over with so I can have the beach back to myself, but it seems like I’m the only one that feels this way. Everyone’s gathered around the fire because we’re about to pick teams, and I’m inwardly cringing, knowing that a tall nerdy girl is never high on anyone’s pick list. If we were doing math quizzes, sure. But sports? No. So a schoolyard pick is inwardly making me cringe hard.
It’s crowded around the main firepit, though. Even the hunting is off for now. A few of the men went out and cleared out a nearby cache and now there’s smoked meat for everyone and enough to last all through the games so most of the hunters can hang out on the beach and enjoy themselves. There will still be the occasional hunting party, of course, but almost everyone will be at the beach, participating in the games.
Yippee. I look over at N’dek, who sits by the fire in his usual spot. I’m squeezed in between Raven and Penny, but I wish I was sitting next to him so I could apologize. I was supposed to go over to his hut last night and hang out, give him a little human 101 lesson, see how his practice with his prosthetic is going…basically just hang out with the first person I’ve felt completely comfortable with.
Okay, and maybe see him wash himself again. I fully acknowledge that I’m a horny virgin.
But…I couldn’t get away last night. Tia was caught try
ing to sneak out to see Sessah, another girl freaked and woke everyone up, and then it turned into a two-hour-long parenting session as Tia rolled her eyes and I tried not to fidget. By the time everyone went to sleep, I was unable to keep my eyes open myself.
Now I worry N’dek thinks I abandoned him. I look him over, but he’s not wearing his prosthetic. It doesn’t surprise me, though. He said he wanted to practice before he wore it in front of the others, which I totally understand. Mentally, I wish for him to turn and look at me, but his focus is on R’jaal and Raahosh and Tia, who’s appointed herself the headmistress of the games and everyone has decided to let her.
Maybe N’dek’s paying attention because he’s going to resonate to Tia. I eye the girl at the front of the group. She’s lovely, of course, with flawless olive skin and big, looping black curls that tumble down her shoulders. She’s also young. Seventeenish, I think? Not old enough to resonate to anyone, but maybe that’s my crusty twenty-nine-year-old virgin side talking. She doesn’t want anyone to score before she does, Old Crusty.
Also…I might be a little hurt that N’dek isn’t interested in me. Chopped liver. I mean, damn. It’s the story of my life—I meet a guy I can really talk to and he treats me like a little sister or a buddy. It happened all through college, it happened when I did internships at labs, and it happened with just about every guy Nani set me up with—they were completely and utterly uninterested in a tall, dinosaur-loving, average-looking desi girl.
Oh well. I’m not sure why I expected things to be different on this planet.
N’dek suddenly turns and looks over at me. I realize his braid is shiny clean and neat, and he’s wearing a new set of furs. He looks good. Happy. That makes me happy, too.
And when he smiles at me as if we share a secret? I suddenly don’t mind that we’re just friends. At least I have a friend and he’s not mad at me. That smile tells me everything’s all right.
“Okay,” Tia says, clasping her hands and looking out over the assembled group. “I’ve made headbands for everyone. There’s a red team and a black team. To keep it fair, we’re going to randomly pick who’s the captain of each team. That person will then choose the next person they want on their team of the opposite gender. That next person will then pick, and so on, and so on. This is to ensure we have an equal distribution of guys and girls on each team. We have a different challenge every day, and some days will have more than one challenge. Some will require thinking, some will require skill, and some will require strength, but we’re going to have a mix of everything so everyone can participate.” She beams at us. “The winners get a special feast in their honor cooked for them by the losers.”