by G. Howell
“I was on my way to get something.”
“I’m sure cook can burn something for you,” she craned her head back to purse her features into a Rris smile up at me.
“That was old the first time I heard it,” I grumbled as I left her to get on with her work.
The dining room was another room with Rris furniture, in case I had to play host at some point. I hadn’t considered it likely, but my sponsors had encouraged the move. It wasn’t a small room and the centerpiece was a low, Rris-style table, big and solid enough to land aircraft on and carved out of some fabulous timber imported from the west at some equally fabulous expense. The cushions were leather, the engravings on them tooled by an artisan whose works were quite in demand, so I was told. There were silver candlesticks beautifully carved into intricate shapes and expensive pictures on the walls.
I hated eating alone in there.
The food was something like stroganoff. Beef... unlikely. Buffalo stroganoff most probably. The cook, Segihis, was elderly and seemed to regard his employers as something of an amusement. But he was pretty good and he was learning my tastes. Which meant not working with some of the more flavorful Rris spices, such as Nightshade or other opiates. Couldn’t do a salad to save his life though. I haven’t met a Rris cook who could.
Food helped. So did the shower afterwards. I leaned my head against the tiles, turned the faucets on full and let near-scalding water sluice down across that tight spot between my shoulder blades. Damn, dealing with Rris was still exhausting. Reading them, interpreting the body language... I had to concentrate on that. I kept trying to interpret their signals as if they were coming from humans, and that was dangerous. A baring of teeth was most certainly not a smile; a shift into what might be a posture of interest in a human was a reaction to a perceived threat in Rris.
I’d known more than a few people back in that lost world who insisted on attributing human emotions to their pets. If I allowed myself to fall into that trap here it would mean trouble. Even with individuals I considered friends it was difficult to relax. There weren’t many times when I could lower my guard so those quiet moments were all the more precious.
I yawned, flinched, then blinked. I’d been dozing off standing up. How long... the water was still hot so it couldn’t have been too long. Yawning again, I rolled my shoulders and turned my face to the faucet, the stream helping to jolt me awake. I flipped the tap off and stepped out, wiping water from my eyes and groping for the towel. A blurry figure handed it to me.
“Christ,” I said to an amused Chihirae a few second later while my heart restarted, I snatched the towel and started drying out my beard. “Haven’t you ever seen Psycho?”
“If that’s something from your world, then I probably haven’t,” she replied as she unfolded a second towel and set to drying my back, patting gently around the railyard-worth of scar tracks there. “You were quite a while in here. I just thought I’d see if you were all right.”
“You could have scratched.”
“That wouldn’t have been as fun,” she chittered, then hesitated and circled me, looking up at me with a cautious expression. “You’re serious?” She laid a hand on my chest, over my drubbing heart. “Hai,” she murmured. “I really frightened you?”
“I wasn’t expecting you,” I said a little defensively. In truth, yes, she had scared the hell out of me.
Her ears went down. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that. You were just in here a long time.”
I waved it off, a gesture she might’ve understood by then. “My fault,” I half-smiled at her expression. “I nearly fell asleep.”
“Under that thing? You’re that tired?”
“Long day.”
“Ah?” She tipped her head, watching her hand as she stroked it down my chest, water slicking the fur on her palm down as she traced fingertips down my shoulder, across my sternum, my belly, down lower. “Something you mentioned earlier, but if you’re too tired...”
“Ah...” I inhaled sharply as she gently caressed, my body responding to ministrations and sensations that were starting to become familiar by suddenly saying it was very awake. “I thought you didn’t want to.”
“I was busy then,” she rumbled. She looked amused, but I could feel that vibration through her chest as she slowly pressed against me, hugged against me, the water dripping from me soaking into her fur. She seemed so small, so petite, her muzzle laid against my chest and the tops of her hears tickled my chin, but there was dense muscle under that hide, sharp teeth and claws and her kind were predators. “Not busy now. You too tired?”
“I don’t know...” I broke off with another gasp.
“No,” she laughed and squeezed again, “you’re not. See? I can....Ahi! Put me down!”
“You roused the beast,” I mock-growled, my hands curled under her furry buttocks as I lifted her, pressing her back against the wall, grinned down at her face. She slitted eyes and wrapped muscular thighs around my waist, hooked arms around my neck. Her hide was a combination of wiry coarse and marvelously soft, prickling and brushing against me. “Here?” she breathed, looking suddenly uncertain.
No. Not there. Not then, not like that. That could have been... uncomfortable. Perhaps risky. For both of us. She licked my neck, her tongue just touching. I shivered and nuzzled her, gently inhaling her dusty scent. Kissing... that also just wasn’t practical: there were differences in mouth shapes and anatomy and attitudes. So many differences meant the act wasn’t something that could just happen. We’d had some practice, made mistakes and learned lessons, but still we had to be careful. Some of my scars were from... a painful memory.
The bedroom was dimly lit; it was warm and quiet and private. Chihirae found it a bit odd that I seemed to think it was the natural place for sex - Rris haven’t sexualized the bed as much as my culture has - but the bed was practical. It was a comfortable place where we could go carefully, where I could be close to her. I know that despite the faint screams of a lost society’s protests, I enjoyed it. I knew that she got pleasure out of it; but it was not and could never be lovemaking for her. Not the same emotional trip I experienced.
And I knew that while we moved together, she wasn’t feeling what I did; what a human did. I could look into the shimmering titanium brilliance of her eyes and what looked back wasn’t something I could read entirely correctly. There was intelligence there; depth there, emotions and decisions I could never truly empathize with or fully comprehend; a soul staring back and trying in turn to read me.
Nevertheless, in the dark night, when the future was unseen and unsure, she was someone to hold to.
------v------
A high, thin overcast was laid across the sky like a pane of filthy gray glass, reducing the early sun to a blushing pale red smear on the eastern horizon. The surface of the lake was rilled with wavelets that slapped staccato time against the breakwater. Inside that wall the harbor was molasses-smooth, stirring with the motion of the river’s currents and the splash as an odd fish darted at something on the surface. I could smell the memory of rain from the night before hanging in the calm, cool air. Water puddled on street cobbles, on the flagstones of the docks, flicking in a spray from the iron-bound wheel rims as the carriage rolled to a stop.
The entire carriage rocked on its primitive leaf suspension as I climbed out and looked around at a dockside already bustling with activity. Behind us, guards were closing the iron barred gates, a couple of them arguing with peddlers outside. In the big workshops and boatsheds stevedores and workers were bustling about their businesses and porters were already working at unloading gear from the back of the carriage. I shouldered my own duffel bag.
“They can take that,” Chihirae almost sounded like she was chiding me as she dropped down beside me.
“I can manage it,” I said. I preferred to carry my own g
ear. It just felt odd to have someone else carrying something I was quite capable of. Besides, there were things in that bag that were valuable. In a unique monetary way to Rris: in a unique sentimental way to me.
Chihirae twitched her ears then patted my arm. “You think you’re ready for this?”
“Do you think they’re ready for me?”
There was moment of surprise, and then she laughed. “I don’t think anyone can be really ready for you,” she assured me.
I almost grinned and hastily caught myself. For a species that uses their teeth as weapon, a grin isn’t a friendly gesture. But it’s a damn difficult thing to unlearn. “It’ll be interesting,” I said.
“A, that’s what concerns me.”
I opened my mouth, then frowned. “I am capable of going somewhere and not causing trouble, you know.”
“I’ve yet to see it,” she said and touched my arm again, watching her own hand smoothing down the hair there and then looking up at me. “You will behave? You know your sense of humor is... odd. There are those who might not appreciate it.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Mikah,” she started to admonish me and then sighed and ducked her head. “Just... don’t make anyone too angry, a?”
“I’ll try,” I said, not sure whether to feel touched by her concern or stung by the lack of confidence. “It’s only for a couple of weeks. And I’m finally going to see some more of your world.” I adjusted my duffel and started off across the rain-slicked flagstones toward the wharf. Chihirae stalked along at my side in that smooth Rris walk, not even seeming to notice that the shallow puddles that soaked the fur of her inhumanly-shaped feet. “Besides, I’ll have my nursemaids.”
Chihirae glanced over her shoulder at the guards following at a discreet distance and her muzzle pursed in amusement. “Ah. A couple of attractive females like that following an oversexed ape around. Why should I worry?”
“Oh? They’re female?” I said, glancing back. Their ears had tipped down fractionally.
“You still can’t tell?”
“Well... sometimes. I’m learning. I’m improving.”
She flickered her ears and snorted. “A. That you are. I just find it remarkable that you know things most people’ve never dreamed of, yet some of the most basic things are beyond you.”
I shrugged. “Sometimes... it’s like learning to breathe all over again.”
She was quiet for a few seconds; mulling that over before she said. “You are learning though. I have had worse pupils.”
“Gee, is that a compliment? I’ve seen your other students, remember.”
She laughed.
“Nothing to worry about,” I reassured her. “Hey, I’ll bring you something.”
“A?” Her ears pricked up. “What?”
“Umm... Uh.” I already had a cellar full of their wine. I knew Cover My Tail’s main exports were coal, iron ore, lumber... great gift ideas. I know a Rris’ idea of a present is somewhat different from the ones I’m accustomed to, but I still wasn’t sure what she’d like. “It will be a surprise, a?”
She chittered. “I will hold you to that.”
The wharf was one of the multitudes of similar stone moorings jutting out into the river from the quayside. This one was private and part of the shipyards, with its own checkpoint and guards. They just stared at me and let us pass without challenge. I suppose I was pretty distinctive.
A single ship was moored at this berth, a vessel I was quite acquainted with. I’d had a part in building it. The Ironheart. It wasn’t the first Rris steam ship, but it was the first to be built incorporating a multitude of design innovations I’d introduced: new types of engine design, new metallurgy techniques, revolutions in hull and prop construction. It was to the previous generation of Rris steamships what the Turbinia had been to its predecessors.
Shortly after I’d arrived in Shattered Water I’d been assigned to Chaeitch, so he could see if what I knew could be put to practical use. We’d actually gotten along. And he was something of a genius when it came to working out how to actually implement an idea. The results were the Ironheart. It was a prototype, a showpiece of a dozen new kind of ideas, and it showed.
Tawny bodies bustled around the ship and wharf: an organized swarm of dockhands and crew working at loading, stowing, stocking, sanding, polishing and cleaning. The river water gently lapped at the thirty-meter hull, the lacquered wood glistening like oil. Morning sunlight filtering through the town, rising above the shipyard roofs, turned fittings, porthole rims and the tops of the stacks to molten brass.
I noticed Chihirae’s ears flick back, laying down against her skull for a second. She didn’t like boats, I’d forgotten that. Was that why she was a little twitchy? In any case, her ears came up again when she saw the group clustered at the gangplank. There were several Rris there, all dressed in expensive-looking garb. The older female with the annoyed expression was Rraerch; the one with the smoking pipe in his mouth was Chaeitch; the one with the pale white leather waistcoat was Marasitha, the protocol officer and diplomat travelling with us; and the other two had the look of Palace officials about them.
One of the officials glanced up to see us walking toward them down the dock. He flinched, stepping back. The others looked at him in surprise, then around at us. Rraerch looked amused and Chaeitch’s ears pricked up.
“Hi,” I said in English then switched to Rris. “Hope we’re not late. She’s terrible about oversleeping.”
“Hai,” Chihirae yipped. “I had to drag you out of bed!”
“Nah, you must’ve dreamed that while I was hard at work and...”
“Ai! Lies and more lies! I should shred your tongue you bald bedwarmer!”
The officials looked taken aback by that but Chaeitch bobbed his head and seemed amused; by us or by their reaction? “You’re in good time,” he said. “We’ve got a few minutes.”
“Good,” I said, brushing past them. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Mikah...” Marasitha caught me. “We’ve still got things to discuss.”
What? We’d spent the day before, the entire day, going over what I should and shouldn’t say. “I thought we’d done with that.”
“There’re still a few points...”
“Later,” I interrupted, holding my hand up. “Later.”
He stopped, laying his ears back. I moved past him, ignoring the others as I stepped up to the diminutive female. Chihirae blinked up at me. “I’ll see you, a?” I said. “I’ll be careful.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart and hope... I promise.”
Alien hands laid on my chest and claws poked through my shirt, pricking my skin as Chihirae leaned in close. “I’ll hold you to that too,” she growled.
I hugged her, feeling the warmth of warm fur, the compact muscle beneath as I touched my lips to the bridge of her muzzle. “Anyone gives you any trouble, just let me know.”
“I can take care of myself,” she chided.
“And I can’t?”
She reached up and stroked my face, my beard. I hated the damn thing, but she’d insisted; had in turn hated the thought of me shaving. A lot of them had: shaving was a symbol of humiliation or illness. And the facial fuzz made me look at least a little ‘normal’. I’d compromised: I kept the beard, but trimmed it back to a length that didn’t leave me looking like the lost mariner. “Mikah, you... I’d hate to lose you.”
I hugged her again, ignoring the other aliens staring at us.
------v------
Waves started applauding against the bow as the ship left the still water of the harbor breakwater. Through the deck I felt the engines step up a notch, the slow pulse beating a bit faster as the Ironheart turned into the fresh lake breeze. From the rail I watched the docks recede and va
nish from sight behind the harbor wall, taking with them the sight of the small figure standing there.
She’d come to Shattered Water not entirely of her own free will. Someone else I’d known had brought her and she stayed out of... well, out of friendship, I hoped. Or perhaps something else. The bonds of Rris male and female relationships are nothing like human ones. There are strong hormonal emotions during the spring, the time of the female heat, but otherwise... they don’t feel the emotional bonding that human couples do. It seems odd to me; cold and detached in a lot of ways, but then my Rris friends can’t understand my attachments.
‘You need to need’, that someone I’d known once told me. She’d been right: I formed close bonds, affections, dependencies, relations, whether it was prudent or not. Someone else had warned me against that, how it could be used against me. And they’d been… they hadn’t been wrong.
So while I loved Chihirae, she couldn’t reciprocate. It wasn’t a deficiency on their part - they certainly felt other things I never could and considered my affections bizarre, at best - but I knew it meant that if she wanted to leave, there was nothing holding her here; nothing emotional at any rate.
I really hoped she’d be there when I got back.
The world warmed as the sun climbed higher. The pale overcast burned away, turned the sky from the milky gray to a cutting turquoise blue. On the far distant horizon, stacks of voluminous white clouds clambered and climbed into the sky like the eiderdowns of the gods. The sun was hot on my shoulders, the wind blowing off the lake cool and smelling of water. Any moisture the night rain had left on the deck soon burned off as the varnished wood heated up. A gull swooped along after us for a while, then soared off into the distance. From my perch out of the way on the cabin roof I could see the hazy dark line of the distant lakeshore in the sun glare right on the edge of view: kilometer upon kilometer of wilderness, an occasional rooftop or curl of smoke in the trees, an occasional little jetty or pier jutting from the shore, but otherwise untouched wilderness.