by Ken Rivers
We were met in front by three Jian-Di, two of them guards with bows thrown around their shoulders, and one who wore a white apron but carried no weapons. They led us inside and the one in white spoke first. “That’s everyone, then?” he gushed to the escort with us.
He beamed, far happier than any Levani I had ever met. “I am master chef Udon.” He bowed for a full three seconds and waited with his hand out, gesturing for us to enter. Four polished wooden chairs on one side of a three-inch-thick dark brown table awaited us. “Please, have a seat. You’re in for a treat today.”
I leaned into B. “It looks like we are in for some gastronomical entertainment. Pet food, maybe?”
“Wrong. It looks like Yari is still pissed at you and we might die any second. You really need to learn to read women and culture better, Mark.”
I thought the protective gesture in front of Tawa was a sign that Yari wasn’t as bent about it as I thought. But still, I wasn’t good at letting possible bad feelings percolate and get worse. A mechanic sees a problem and goes for the fix so I tried to clear the air. “I’m not sorry about what I did, Yari. You should know by now that all I want to do is protect you. And I was able to do that.”
She didn’t look at me. “You don’t think before you act. You didn’t think about me and what might happen. I wasn’t sure if I wanted the damn thing to come off, either. But, it’s not something I can have undone so it’s fine. It’s a cultural cognitive difference that we can’t reconcile. I won’t let that happen again.” She was smiling but it was forced.
B raised her eyebrow. “Slick. After you, lover boy.”
10
Yari finally looked at me, but she wasn’t happy about it. “I’m in debt to you for what you did. I thought we understood each other. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been saving your life pretty much every second since then.”
“Look, I understand considering all possible outcomes before doing something is what the Levani are all about, so I’ll do that from now on. That’s what you want, right?” Or at least, I would make damn sure she didn’t find out that I hadn’t thought it through.
She turned away from me and didn’t look back.
Why couldn’t she just get over it?
Pusi didn’t seem to care very much about what was going on. Her hair was still on end from talking to Tawa. “How long for food?”
I wasn’t even sure what Pusani ate. Deep fried space rat, maybe?
Chef Udon’s impatience pushed our concerns to the side. “Excellent! Since you are all technically guests, I have been commanded—to my delight, mind you—to whip up some lovely Levani favorites. I have taken the liberty of making a few human dishes as well, although they are closer to fusion cooking than anything else. Ha! Yes, well, we don’t get fresh Terrain produce down here, I’m afraid,” he finished with a humming grin, hands clasped just below his chin. I had never seen a Levani with a double chin before. “Please,” he gestured to four wooden chairs.
B raised her eyebrow and gestured to the seat next to me. “May I, lover boy?” She plopped down to my left without my approval. Yari sat next to her, and Pusi was to my right. The guards didn’t move an inch and the cooking ensued. “Now, right here we have a lovely…”
As he gushed about his cooking, B slid her hand onto my thigh and leaned closer. “Don’t beat yourself up too much about everything. The human-Levani thing was doomed from the start. Looks like you’ll just have to stick with sex slaves and good ole human ladies.”
Pusi dragged her claws over other my thigh. “I calm now. Thought we die today. Now, we eat. Maybe not so bad day.”
I looked over at Yari one more time, but she didn’t look at me.
The first dish was plated and placed in front of us. Pusi’s ears flattened against her head. “What this? You no cook for Pusani before?”
Udon wiped his hands on his towel and eyed the hunk of beautifully marbled meat on her plate. “Do I smell a complaint? This is no problem. Try it first, you just might like it!”
“Is no fresh,” Pusi was eyeing the other hunk of raw meat with a cleaver stuck firmly into the cutting board.
“I beg to differ, pussy cat. It was killed just this morning. A cow for the humans, I believe it was. No cows where you’re from?”
“Is no fresh!” Pusi was adamant.
B leaned over, pulled the plate over to herself and shoved a piece of the medium rare steak in her mouth. “So good. Sorry Chef Udon, Pusani don’t eat cooked food. Just give it to her raw.”
Udon straightened his hat like something had hit him and knocked it off kilter. “That’s absolutely animalistic! I will not give it to her raw.”
Pusi pointed, “I love big raw meat. Give me?”
“No,” he said.
“Give Pusi meat, NOW!”
I had eaten half my steak before I knew it. Caramelized fat and salt crunched and squished inside my mouth. I scarfed down the rest of the steak, baked potato, and the greens of unknown origin and asked for another. Udon was holding onto his knife shoved deep into the cutting board when he heard me.
“See!” He gestured with his hand, “It’s so splendidly good he couldn’t even speak while eating. I’ll whip up another right away for you, sir. And you, cat, eat what’s on your plate!”
“What if you on my plate? I eat you, fat man!”
“Pusi,” B deflected, “Just give her the raw meat already, tubby. She’s had an emotional day and you’re kind of pissing me off now, too.”
Yari suddenly stood. “Call Lady Yen. I don’t feel like eating or sleeping right now. I want to learn what I must as soon as possible. I’ll be in my room until then.” She slid out of her chair and bowed. “If you’ll excuse me.”
I watched as she disappeared into her room. Udon slammed down the whole cut of raw steak on the table. “You are missing out on perfection.” Pusi dug in and Udon produced a few more dishes and a lovely desert, then packed up his wares and left us fat and sleepy at the table.
One of the guards had disappeared. Lady Yen entered a moment later with two women. Their eyes were covered by thick iron plates embedded into their heads. They wore identical bone-white gowns. The one following behind Lady Yen, fidgeting with her hands, was frailer and slightly stooped, with silver hair mixed with wiry white. The smile lines around her blackened mouth made me think that she liked to talk. The younger one stood with perfect posture, shaved bald and streaked with razor marks, hands folded neatly in front of her.
Pusi was in a food coma on the table, purring away.
“I have been informed that our dear sister wasn’t interested in her company or fare for the evening. Where is she?”
B pointed to the room. “Will you be with us all night, Lady Yen?”
“I certainly won’t,” she spat back. “Although I might have a word with your mechanic. I must record what has been done to him in great detail, for posterity's sake.”
“Whose posterity?” B asked.
“We don’t understand what our dear sister did to him and how they are connected by it. In order to help her heal him and break this irritating social connection they’ve made, he must be studied. Killing him would be the faster option,” she paused and looked at me, “only in theory, of course. I won’t harm a hair on that dirty head of yours. I’ll be back later for you.”
I watched her robes dance around the fulcrum of her hips as she knocked on Yari’s door and then entered, with the two women still in tow. I hated physical exams, but I had one kind of donation I’d like to put all over her face.
B was already looking through the cupboards for a nightcap. “One bails, and the next one pulls up to dock. Lucky boy.”
“Hardly. She isn’t interested. Did you see those women following her? If she takes any needles out, I’m done. I’d choose death over that.”
“Still scared of needles? It’s a little childish.” She grabbed a bottle and put it straight back. “A proper hideout full of outlaws would have a strong stock of drink on hand. This
is sad.”
“B, did you see Tawa’s arm?”
The cabinets opened and slammed shut in a drum line chorus. “Yup. Pretty gross.” She was focused on the hunt. “Damn it, where the fuck is their booze?”
“Forget the drink. The creature that attacked Yari and I at the temple, it looked like that arm. All of it did, from head to fucking toe.”
She turned and cupped her muff. “Forget this.”
“B, come on. You’re an Enforcer, right? You must know something about it.”
“All the intel I’ve ever heard on the Jian-Di was in the form of general cultural understanding classes, so it’s all mythical. There was nothing about a single leader or his abilities either. He did mention something about Yari testing to become a ‘Mother’, but that makes little sense. The Father and Mother were a legendary couple who together created and controlled the leviathan. Tawa was alone. I think that shit about becoming a ‘Mother’ was his way of baiting the trap for Yari. It’s all creation myth bullshit.”
The faint clang of glass bottle on glass bottle rang from inside a high cabinet. “Gotcha!” she said, proud of her find as she reached over the counter for some goblets made of pottery. The tight gray micron-fabric slipped over her hips like melted chocolate running over a fresh plump strawberry. “Fancy a taste, lover boy?”
“I think I’ll pass. Being drunk and in imminent danger isn’t my thing.”
“And you’re a walking dead man. You sure you don’t want a sip?”
“No, thanks.”
“Suit yourself. I like to live while I have the chance. You never know. Let’s have a seat, shall we?.” She popped the cork on what looked like some Levani red wine and pulled back half a cup before I could sit.
She tipped the bottle again and the refill glugged into the kiln-fired clay. “Did you notice his Life-Tech?” she asked.
Where I had stopped at the realization that he had something in common with the monster from the other night, B had seen it all. “Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’d bet my virginity on it…if I still had it. Haha. So, since his shoulder and neck looked unsullied by the rot, I would say maybe the Life-Tech has something to do with his ability to control it. He was pretty braggy about the whole ‘I’m a badass who learned how it all works’ thing.”
“I would be braggy, too, if I could buckle peoples’ knees with the twitch of my hand.” I watched B throw back some more wine and thought about the Life-Tech. “So, CONTROL uses the device to track all Levani. And, according to Tawa, it can also be used to prevent the rot from occurring in them.”
She finished her glass and poured another. “He was also big on his peoples’ true power being explicitly suppressed by it and made it sound like the priest was just a low-level kill-monster.” She paused for another drink. “Are you sure you don’t want any of this? It’s actually quite good.”
“Thanks but no. The thought of there being an even more bad ass Culler out there puckers the orifice, if ya know what I mean.”
I thought about having a drink then. Scary ideas aside, I usually ended every day with a cold, frosty brew, and my body was starting to ache for one. But, my eyes were drawn to Yari’s door once again.
Would she figure out that what I did was the right choice? Culturally, I had totally blown it. It wasn’t like sticking chopsticks in rice or some other equally irrelevant faux pas. I was being blamed for a difference in logical thinking. Ends apparently didn’t justify the means, here, which meant I was screwed every time I had a decision to make.
A turn of the door handle raised my spirits in hopes that Yari would come out and tell me everything was fine, and I could stop beating myself up about it. I was never this stuck on crap. But, being thought of as dead wrong and reckless because I didn’t plan out my actions in step-by-step detail like a set of instructions to a plasmatic-tetra converter was just wrong.
The door opened and closed, along with my chance to speak with her. Lady Yen exited the room and took an analytical look at us three in the dining room. Her eyes settled on Pusi, asleep at the table. “Before I leave, might I ask why you have a Pusani with you? CONTROL is strictly a human affair. I wasn’t aware that they were recruiting outside of the species.”
B popped the cork on the second bottle of her feel-good juice. “Funny story, actually. Mark here hadn’t boned in forever, so—”
“She’s on a work exchange program,” I cut in, “taking technical skills back to her home world.” I shot B a look that could’ve melted the protective layer off a heat shield.
Lady Yen raised an eyebrow. “Work exchange? Trying to spread the curse of technology throughout the galaxy, no doubt.” Her eyes moved to me. “Take your shirt off.”
“I knew I should’ve brought my video unit,” B said.
Pusi’s tail jerked about quickly, one eye slit just barely open.
Three women were waiting for me to take my shirt off and all I wanted to do was fix the problem with Yari. I slipped out of it and the shadows at my feet gave way to the orange glow of my wound.
11
Lady Yen came in for a closer look, hesitant to touch it. Her eyes narrowed, and her hands came off her hips. “How often do you feel pain?”
I braced, expecting to wince when touched, but only felt her soft fingertips. “Right after Yari healed me, nothing at all. But the frequency has increased since.”
“Hmph. Has she paid any attention to you at all between healings? I don’t expect you to know the frequency in the last day.”
“So far, each time she relieves the pain, it comes back with more intensity.”
Lady Yen rolled her eyes. “Look at this. She’s all power and no finesse. It’s no wonder you’re on death’s doorstep without her constantly close at hand.”
I was starting to get a bullying vibe from her. Strange for someone who was tasked with helping and teaching. I tested the water to see if there was any give in her at all or if her heels were dug in fast and she was just going to shit-talk Yari’s work for the remainder of the examination.
“It’s better than being dead, though, right?” I laughed.
“There are levels of survival we are all willing to live with, I guess. Wait, what’s that?” She slid her hand up my side and pushed in with her thumb. I lurched and stepped back. “Fuck! Did you just stab me!?” I grunted.
“Amateur work at best. She didn’t even remove the rot before repairing the damage. It’s a wonder you survived this long.” She looked me up and down and softened her features. “What is it about you? I can’t put my finger on it.”
“I think you put your finger right the fuck on it, actually.” I rubbed my side and straightened.
“It’s like she placed a piece of herself inside you and it’s been fighting off the spread of the black, but it’s a losing battle. A Levani would be seduced into the change by now, but you, your body rejects it with her help.” She looked closer. “How does she stop what would take moments to overcome any human. Maybe…HOPELESS! This is beyond any one girl. I thought maybe she had found a way to stop it naturally. Maybe in time, with years of training and help from others, but not anytime soon. ”
Her shitty energy had shifted and for a second, I felt relaxed. “It’s as I feared, human. You will die in the next two days and there’s nothing she can do about it. Even if she were to lay her hands on you and not leave your side.” It was the first time she spoke to me in a soft tone. Her bedside manners weren’t that bad.
“Don’t you think you’re underestimating her a little?” I asked.
She took my hands in hers and studied my eyes for a moment. She was breathing in deeply, taking in my scent. “Not at all. She has failed you.” She dropped my hands and went straight back to Yari’s room, gone with a thud of the door.
So that was my second medical opinion. I was going to die and there was nothing to come from it.
“I don’t believe her,” B said. Her speech began to slur slightly. “I think she likes you. Ask her back
to your room and you might get a different story out of her.”
“Well, at least I have that going for me in the next two days.” I pulled my shirt down. “She must see something in me that you don’t. Are you jealous?”
“Oh honey, no. For sure, there is jealousy about. But it’s more from Lady Yen toward Yari.”
“Why? Because Yari is secretly in love with me even though she thinks I’m an impulsive moron?”
She poured the last of the wine into her little goblet. “Women are more complicated than men in terms of all that. No. You saw how Tawa looked at Yari when she stood up to him. He likes that kind of shit. I saw it in his eyes. She’s younger, more mysterious, possibly more powerful, and definitely newer than Lady Yen. So, for Ms. Yen, you’re just a way for her to piss Tawa off. Jealousy’s a bitch.”
“Jeez, B. You think you could’ve just lied to me? I’m a dead man walking, here.”
“Hell, no. Better to go out with your eyes open than shut. The whole part of you dying and you being screwed feels pretty legit, but I still think you might see a way out right before the end.”
“You’re style of motivation is pretty rough.”
“That’s why I’m here. To give you what you need, not what you want.”
That was the truest thing she had probably ever said to me. I wanted B’s body, but, in its place, she gave me her friendship and had my fucking back. Not a bad trade-off.
Lady Yen and the weird iron-visored women came out of the room and left the cottage without a word. Yari came out for a glass of water. “They said I need more training and they’ll be back tomorrow.” She still didn’t look at me. “How’s your wound?”
“Hurts to touch, now. Especially the side,” I started to lift my shirt up and she started back to her room.
“Get some rest and call me if you need me. Good night.”
Everyone headed off to bed. I was the only one with a second story window. A window that looked out into the blackness tinged with the faint glow of others slowing down for the evening.